Anyone who hasn't spent the last few years under a rock has by now seen the notorious photographs taken by American guards at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison.

The images, which emerged in early 2004, show U.S. soldiers apparently committing humiliating and cruel acts on their seemingly terrified and frequently naked charges. The photos provoked an outcry regarding U.S. policy and the use of so-called "enhanced interrogation" techniques against prisoners; many called for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's resignation. Ultimately, a dozen soldiers, "bad apples" in Rumsfeld's parlance, were convicted of various offenses, while higher-ups in the Bush Administration were not punished.

If that's all you know about the Abu Ghraib scandal, then Errol Morris' new documentary, "Standard Operating Procedure," will be an eye-opener.

It turns out, you see, that these young, inexperienced recruits were scapegoated by the officials responsible for approving the reprehensible tactics they employed. Morris interviews several of the soldiers, including the notorious Lynndie England, to get their side of the story, and investigates the story behind some of the most iconic photos from the prison scandal. The result includes many fascinating details and plenty of chilling recollections, but ends up flawed on key fronts.

An Oscar winner for "The Fog of War," his film about Robert McNamara, Morris hasn't previously tackled contemporary hot-button politics, and you could argue that he still hasn't. "Standard Operating Procedure" is driven as much by a desire to fully understand the photographs as it is by a desire to exonerate the soldiers in them. Morris doesn't really have an interest in probing the overall deficiencies of U.S. policy or tracing the situation's origins up the bureaucratic chain. That's OK; plenty of films ("Taxi to the Dark Side," "Ghosts of Abu Ghraib") tackle other angles. Where this narrow focus hurts "Standard Operating Procedure" is in its inconsistent approach toward the truthfulness of images as well as its refusal to press the tough questions on its subjects.

For years, Morris has drawn the ire of documentary purists for his use of reenactments and other cinematic techniques; "Standard Operating Procedure," for instance, boasts slick cinematography from Oscar-winner Robert Richardson and a score by Danny Elfman. Ordinarily, this can remain an academic discussion, but in this film, with its emphasis on ferreting out what those photographs really show, it seems disingenuous to create any doubt whatsoever in the viewer's mind about the objectivity of what's being depicted onscreen. When a soldier describes a drop of blood falling from a dead prisoner onto his uniform and we then see a re-created shot of just that happening, isn't Morris doing the very thing he's protesting: framing an event a certain way in order to get the desired response from the viewer?

The other disconcerting aspect is the lack of any recognition of their own culpability by the interviewees.

Even if we accept that they were in a Boschian hellhole, untrained, totally unprepared for the environment, guided by what they saw others doing, even specifically commanded to engage in human pyramid stacking (or sexual humiliation or leashing, etc.), that still doesn't entirely absolve the American guards. Just because others bear blame for what went on doesn't mean they bore none, and while the deal they got was raw, they never lacked the ability to say no.

And yet some -- England comes to mind -- have a chip on their shoulders. Even if any one of us is capable of this behavior in those circumstances, that doesn't mean we shouldn't feel remorseful about it afterward. The question of where a soldier's duty to obey orders contrary to universal human rights ends is a fascinating one that is relevant in all wars, and one that Morris would have done well to consider.